Fallen Blades
by Riddlesnare
Summary: Suuk Kaskada, a Kel Dor Jedi, has been left stranded on a gloom-set planet, uninhabited by sapient life, since the start of the Jedi Purge. Having had to deal with heavy loss and her own looming insanity for time beyond what she can properly gather, an opportunity to escape suddenly arises. The origin of it, and the one to discover Suuk, proves to be an investigating Inquisitor.
1. Chapter 1: Isolation

_"Master, will I die here?"_

Suuk Kaskada's eyes opened from behind the goggles that rested in front of them as they registered the ringing, frail voice of her former protege. The Kel Dor Jedi inhaled a deep, shaken breath, and exhaled a calm one in its place. Closing her eyes once more, she returned to her meditation as best as she could manage.

She had been meditating at the foot of the grave of her padawan - the place where she spent most of her days performing that activity now. Her first, only, and clearly to be final student, a young Neimoidian named Parsac Hac, was with her aboard a small shuttle when their clone fighter escorts suddenly opened fire upon them from out of nowhere. Barraged by more blaster shots than its hull could handle, the half-destroyed ship careened away into the atmosphere of this world and crash-landed upon its swampy surface. It all happened as they entered the system containing this planet, and ended as swiftly as it shockingly began.

Suuk and Parsac were the only ones who survived the immediate crash of the shuttle, upon which it was instantly beset upon by a fiery explosion that destroyed any available technology they could have hoped to use to call for aid. Parsac himself soon after succumbed to the dreadful wounds he had accrued from the ordeal, leaving his master alone and in mourning over his excruciatingly-sudden death. Not by choice, Suuk had taken refuge and lived on this uninhabited planet, eternally shrouded by dense and dark clouds, from then on and for longer than she could ever remember. She could not distinguish whether it had been many months, or a meager few years, and her mind became all the more feverish for it. Wild creatures of varying shapes and sizes roamed its murky and damp forests, but sensing her as not being native, few dared to approach the Jedi. She easily cut down any that tried to make a meal of her.

Without sunlight to shine down in place of the almost-constant rain, Suuk's thick, hairless, leathery flesh had become as pallid as death. The Jedi robes she still wore all this time were ragged and coated in filth and muck; their color now dull with wear. It seemed only her lightsaber holstered by her side and mask on her face were the only untarnished parts of her. The mask was her most valuable asset, more so than her lightsaber now, for she needed the rebreather system it possessed to stay alive. This atmosphere, rich with oxygen, was a type her species could not survive in. To take it off and go without it for too long had the easy potential to poison her immediately.

And yet, that was perhaps the least of her worries. The worst was the _voices_. She was strong in the Force, as Jedi normally were, but it had nothing to do with the voices that plagued her. Diagnosed with schizophrenia very soon after being taken in to the Jedi Temple she once called home as an infant, she took medication to cope with it. The problem irked her no longer, until that accursed day took place that left her marooned here. Deprived of the medication, she struggled to manage without it. Exercises, relaxation and meditation were the actions she partook in most when not looking for food, and though it was her best method to combat her mental illness' symptoms, it was never enough.

The voices persisted like an aching cancer, and having to deal with them in complete isolation didn't help in the slightest. Her only companions now seemed to be them, and the occasional sights and hallucinations that followed in their wake. Some she recognized - however vague they were - as resembling her Jedi friends and colleagues she considered to be her family, but most were utterly alien. Some sounded or appeared light and benevolent, but many were malevolent and daunting.

The forsaken cries, cruel taunts, figments she wished with all of her being were real but knew in her heart weren't, and outright torture of it all was an unbearable torment to struggle against, and Suuk could feel her mind slowly slipping away from reality with every passing week she remained alone on this private hell of hers. The Kel Dor tried to endure, but even she knew it was a losing battle. The only thing between her keeping her senses and full-on insanity was her faith in the Force and her stubborn resolve in the belief that she would escape this horrid world, someday, somehow.

It was some time later that Suuk stood up from the dirt floor and looked at her surroundings that were setting into almost pitch blackness. Night was fast approaching, and to keep a healthy mind, she needed to rest. She looked at the plain, unmarked grave of Parsac for a few minutes longer, observing the tender soil sitting above where his remains she had properly, and traditionally cremated rested, and then set off on a path through the bog she had learned to familiarize herself with that would take her to her makeshift home.

 _"Worthless scum,"_ a sudden voice with a gravelly tone rattled from a nearby bush she passed by, not a short time after departing from the spot. _Cowardly, worthless scum... stranded and afraid, like a small, lost child. Couldn't even save him with all of your power... yet, you feel yourself of worth to constantly be in his presence?_

She ignored the rancid chittering and walked onward. Five minutes later the paranoid feeling of being watched set in like an awful itch. She too knew that this was not real as well, but she kept her guard up just in case; a four-fingered hand gripping nervously onto her lightsaber. Eventually she reached her home. It was a small cave that naturally extended from the ground, with brush she had placed above it acting like a curtain or set of drapes. She grew closer to it, and was seconds from entering when a queer feeling streaked through her brain like a flash of lightning.

Suuk turned to the cloud-covered sky without hesitation, even though she saw nothing in it. She could feel something was approaching the planet, specifically close to her position. By pure instinct she knew, right off, that it wasn't anything to do with her illness that prompted this sensation. It was a... _presence_. One strong in the ways of the Force! A fellow Jedi come to her rescue at long last? A manner of which to escape this world? Or... was that even it? Was it even, truly there? Was this merely another cruel hallucination she was to suffer through?

Doubt set in, but like the troublesome, fat flies that littered the landscape, Suuk shook it away. Hope was all she had anymore, and hope was what rode her next action. Turning away from her cave, she fully let herself go to the Force that directed her to where the presence was indubitably approaching, and quickly broke into a run that dashed through the thick, murky, marsh-laden terrain; determined to catch this chance before it could slip through her grasp.

* * *

 **Author's note:** For anyone who needs confirmation on this, her name is pronounced 'Sook/Sue-k'. Not 'suck'.


	2. Chapter 2: A Confrontation

The Twelfth Brother's two hands tightened into fists by his side; each appendage bearing four long fingers cloaked in thick, dark gloves matching the rest of his black gear. His head was enveloped fully within a large, dark helmet with a long, downward-facing brim that extended to his shoulders and the Imperial insignia painted upon each one. He looked out of the featureless faceplate concealing his face to the monitor displaying the images of the planet's surface, and upon his small landing craft's imminent landing, he was soon to interact with the world himself.

Why an Inquisitor of the Galactic Empire like himself had to come to this foul and uncivilized place in the Outer Rim was for the matter of confirming the final demises of the two Jedi reportedly shot down by their clone troopers during the event known as Order 66; the protocol that began the Jedi Purge. The only piece of good news for this mission, he thought, was that it wouldn't be a long while that he would have to spend marching about in this wretched mire. All he had to accomplish was a thorough inspection of the crash site of the specific ship that was marked upon his map after a quick scan of the planet, make an attempt at locating what remained of their bodies if there was anything left of them, retrieve the lightsabers from their cadavers if possible, and report back to his master.

Having officially been seven years that had transpired since the incident supposedly occurred, as well as since the fall of the Republic, it was highly unlikely he would meet any living Jedi on the surface of this place. It was nothing but marshland and swampy terrain, peppered with haggard old trees and the occasional pond scum-infested lake. A concentrated bioscan of the planet was a futile endeavor due to the uncharted nature of its ecosystem, leaving him to resort to a more manual approach. When his ship made landfall he disembarked from it, but not before locking it down, as he always did before heading off to complete a mission.

It didn't take Twelfth Brother too long of a journey over the humid, spongy terrain to discover the site of the fallen craft's main wreckage. What little remained of the outdated and utterly destroyed Republic shuttle was mostly consumed under the thick surface of the crater-turned bog it made upon its original impact. The few other pieces left of it strewn about the surrounding landscape were rusted, moss-covered debris, with only some parts recognizable as being from a spaceworthy craft, and not a junk dealer's scrap heap. The Twelfth Brother investigated around the crash site for a short time but saw no sign of the original occupants' remains. He attempted to heighten his senses with the Force, using it to his best ability to locate anything else of inherent interest, but that failed to yield any results as well.

He paced around the land that the wreckage dwelt within next, seeking to make a final attempt at discovering something of value before heading back to his ship to dispense his ID9 seeker droids to probe the insides of the shuttle and earth around it. He saw nothing except more derelict scrap being claimed by the swampland. It seemed as though the venture on this dark planet would be for next to nothing, when something quite peculiar happened next to the Inquisitor.

"H-hello?" came a sudden sound, its pitch loud and clear in spite of the Inquisitor's quiet surroundings, nearly causing Twelfth Brother to believe he was being jumped by a local predator. Spinning around, he could instantly see the shape of a humanoid figure standing on a short ridge a small ways away. Sliding down the slope it quickly approached him through the brush sitting at its base in a reckless sprint, and upon exiting it, revealed to the Twelfth Brother what it really was in what little light surrounded them.

To his utter surprise, the Inquisitor recognized the being right off as a female Kel Dor. And everything about her demeanor was positively filthy, including the scraps of light metal armor there were resting around her upper chest and shoulders. She appeared very thin from what he could only presume at that moment was from hunger, and her wrinkled skin possessed an unhealthy pale coloration to it. She was nearly trembling with an emotion the Inquisitor could sense as... _excitement_.

"Y-y-y-you... y-you are... _real_ , yes?" the words escaped her in a stutter, partially muffled by the old and worn breathing apparatus she wore. Just _talking_ made Suuk feel giddy. She hadn't spoken to anyone she knew was material and not some figment of her imagination for so agonizingly long, it almost felt _wrong_ to do so. She stepped closer to the dark shape, stumbling over a gnarled root of an old tree in the process, but regaining her balance after a second and finishing her traversing of the path between her and the fellow offworlder. Before the Twelfth Brother could so much as overcome his astonished mien and properly react, the Jedi had reached him and grabbed at either side of his concealing faceplate with her hands.

"You _are_ real... oh... oh, yes, yes!" she cried out with joy, almost sounding like her voice was cracking with unkempt emotion, all as the Inquisitor could only look at her in stunned silence. With a swipe of his arm he pulled her prying hands off of himself and stepped back two feet, both gloved hands to his side where his special Inquisitorius-assigned lightsaber was kept sheathed.

"Who are you?" the Inquisitor barked, very tempted to draw his weapon then and there. His mind raced with ideas on who exactly this strange person was and what she was doing out here, but he was able to form a proper theory when he recognized the dirty clothes she was wearing were of a certain origin. Tilting his head in suspicion, he spoke a second time, but in a more controlled voice. "May you... tell me your name?"

"O-oh, yes, of c-course! I-I... I am Suuk Kaskada," she responded, motioning a hand to her chest. "I am a Jedi Knight of the Republic. I was... was _flying_ through this system with my padawan and three others when my escort of clone troopers opened... o-opened fire on my shuttle. I-it crashed here. I am the only survivor."

A small beat of silence came between them as the Twelfth Brother took this information in. "Jedi Knight?" he eventually questioned affably, while slowly reaching for his lightsaber once again, but in a subtle display.

"Yes." She nodded her head rapidly. "I assure you, I am one. You are from the Order as well, are you not? I could sense your innate power in the Force while you made planetfall."

The Twelfth Brother went silent for a moment, as though lost in thought. Inhaling and exhaling a deep sigh, he silently took his weapon from his belt and brought it up into both of his hands. "A Jedi I am not. Not anymore." A loud hum went out as a red beam of energy emitted from the device's tip, visibly startling Suuk in the process.

Confusion also entered what little could be seen of the Kel Dor's expression, and her brow raised and then furrowed. She could see the lightsaber displaying the crimson color most associated with servants of the Dark Side, but the pang of hope within her denied any feelings of fear or caution. "Wh-what... do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is that I am no Jedi. I am what you would refer to as an Inquisitor," Twelfth Brother repeated in a low tone, one reeking with malevolence. "And I would like to thank you for so very graciously revealing yourself to me."

Suuk tried to make sense of his words. When she finally realized what he was speaking of was the one thing she dreaded most, her disposition changed dramatically. "You... you are here to kill me, aren't you?" she asked, taking a step back of her own. Using the Force to bring her lightsaber from her side to her hands, she shifted a control on the device's handle, igniting it. A green beam erupted from the top of her tool, and it lit up her dark, nearby surroundings with its glow. " _Aren't you?_ "

"I would be lying if I said that I was not," Twelfth Brother calmly admitted, running a finger over the smooth metal guard extending around his lightsaber's handle. "As a Jedi, you are an enemy of the Empire. You and what little of your kind who remain must be crushed. And I am the hand that is sent to hunt your kind down for good."

"'Wh-what little of my kind remain'? _'Empire'?_ " Suuk questioned, her position lowering and guard up; her stance now completely defensive and prepared to receive an attack. "What 'Empire'?"

"The _Galactic_ Empire," was the final thing the Inquisitor spoke before getting into an offensive posture; lightsaber held over his head. He lunged forward to his quarry and struck forth. Their blades met with a crackling and sizzling noise. Pulling his weapon back, the Dark Side adept attacked her with exceptional vigor, again and again.

But the Jedi was prepared for the assault. Suuk had honed the skills she had with her lightsaber during her time alone on this planet, as doing so constituted as a large part of her exercises to maintain fitness and balance with the Force. Reacting to every attack, no matter the level of strength backed behind it, her blade seemed to move a will of its own; deflecting every strike that came her way with perfect defense. The Inquisitor, though his visage was hidden from view, quickly grew more frustrated as he pressed his assault further on. Determined to gain the upper hand and hopefully end the fight in his favor, the guard on his lightsaber's handle extended to the opposite side, turning it disk-like, as a second blade on his lightsaber lit up at the handle's bottom. A flurry of red came Suuk's way as the blades began to spin on the disc they were both attached to like a rotor blade; the melee intensifying twofold.

For a while spanning many minutes, their duel went on. They leaped and tumbled; their hissing blades never a second apart from the other. While Suuk was obviously much more skilled in the art, she was still in a terrible state of physical malnutrition from having to survive on this planet for so long, and the Inquisitor could sense this weakness. Her movements gradually began to slow as she started to tire, and this culminated in the Inquisitor eventually landing an upward swing that nearly cut into her flesh, just nicking the fore of her chest armor instead as she jumped back.

Suuk quickly regained her footing just as the sound of a mocking voice entered her head, distracting her like a jolting prod of electricity. _"Stupid, slow fool,"_ it spoke in a hateful snicker, taking her mind away from the battle for half of a second. _"Too slow. Too stupid..."_

That half-second was all the Inquisitor needed to shift the tide fully into his favor. Kicking out in a sweeping motion, his boot connected to the base of her hand holding the lightsaber, knocking it out of it, where it plopped like a loose weight into a nearby puddle of muck. Following the kick with an elbow to her stomach, the Twelfth Brother hit Suuk down to the ground. With the desperation of a cornered animal she rolled away and instantly scrambled from the mud to get back onto her feet, narrowly avoiding getting impaled on the Twelfth Brother's lightsaber as he stabbed it at her, causing the red beam to sizzle into the moist soil of the ground instead.

 _"Run away!"_ suddenly came one, then two, then ten voices. It was like a choir of whispers and shouts were singing in her head in unison, and through it, Suuk could only hear two words repeating and influence her next action. _"Run away! Run away!"_

The Inquisitor finished pulling his lightsaber from the ground and watched his prey suddenly flee. She had dashed behind a large, but short tree with a wrinkled old trunk many dozens of feet wide. The Twelfth Brother finished pulling his blade from the ground and gave chase in a blind act of pursuit, determined to run her down before she could escape him.

He turned around the tree in his mad dash to catch up with and finally end the Jedi, only to feel a great, hard, and highly unexpected force meet his face, sending him in a stagger. Reeling back the large stone she picked up from the ground and now held, Suuk growled and violently hit him with it again in a mighty swing; this time striking it cleanly across the back of his helmeted head with a cracking noise, followed by a weak grunt from his part. His lightsaber deactivating and dropping from his now-idle hands, the Inquisitor spun and fell to the ground back-first in a lurching motion. Suuk pounced on him before he could have a chance at retaliating.

With a roar, Suuk slammed the stone into the Inquisitor's covered head three more times without resistance, denting and crushing some of its metal surface with her strength, before coming to the realization he had already gone limp with unconsciousness. Hesitantly stopping her attack and panting, having exerted much more energy in the fray than she had spent in a long time, she slowly threw the rock away and stood back up with her hands clasped to her mud-coated knees.

After catching her breath and double checking that her foe was fully out of it with a small kick to one of his arms, Suuk walked off and grabbed her lightsaber from the grimy puddle it had fallen into a little over a dozen meters away before returning to him. Cleaning off the surface of her weapon as best as she could, the Jedi looked down at the Inquisitor with a leer, contemplating on what to do with him. He attacked her without provocation, clearly with the intent of slaying her, and yet now laid at her mercy.

 _"Kill him,"_ a light voice began to whisper from somewhere behind her; its speech mannerisms quick and penetrating, like a blaster bolt. _"He will wake up and he kill you. Kill him. Do it. Do it. Kill him."_

Suuk simply stared at her defeated foe in silence for several minutes. Tempted as she was to finish him off with but a single strike from her weapon, she inevitably refrained from it and made the hateful thought, followed soon by the twisted voice, leave her addled head. She knew full well it went against all she had learned as a Jedi, and her resolve to adhere to her kind's customs was set in stone. Instead of killing him, she left him where he laid and began to run off, in the direction where she first encountered him and witnessed his ship landing from a distance.

After several minutes of dashing through the murky wilds, she soon discovered the ship. It was a small, dark craft, clearly made to land on especially rough terrain, judging by the stout, albeit long appearance of its landing gear. Both of its curved wings displayed a white, circular insignia on them like the kind the Inquisitor wore on his armor, which bore a look she thought of as familiar to the symbol of the Galactic Republic, yet had a few features on it that were simply off.

Upon approaching the door, she opened and entered through it, coming into a narrow passageway as foreboding and dark as the colors of the ship's outside. Suuk noted right off how it felt so... _odd_ to feel herself treading upon a hard, metal, _artificial_ floor again. Instead of reminiscing further on the small things of life she missed, Suuk kept her head clear and focused, and continued forward. The first place she went to was the control area.

Being situated on the front of the ship, it wasn't hard to reach. She began to fiddle with the controls on the main panel to try and get it functioning. However, the second she started, a red, holographic screen suddenly flashed over the panel, reading an alerting message for the Jedi to observe. Apparently, it was shut off on security-assigned lockdown, and she knew not what code she had to enter in order to lift it. Cursing and slamming her fists onto the sides of the control panel, the hologram slowly vanished, leaving Suuk alone with her thoughts.

And the only idea that came to her was one she despised. This craft was the Inquisitor's, so surely he knew the way to shut off the lockdown and get it flying. But knowing how their confrontation went down, it would most likely not be an easy task to gain his compliance in the matter, if even possible. Suuk, out of options, groaned aloud as she came to her final conclusion, cursing again, but this time to herself.

She needed that foul Inquisitor if she wanted to get off of this planet at long last.


End file.
